Satyagraha Against the Rowlatt Act— First Mass Strike

Just when the Indians expected a huge advance towards self- rule as a reward for their contribution to the war, they were given the Montford Reforms with its very limited scope and the shockingly repressive Rowlatt Act. Not surprisingly the Indians felt betrayed. More so Gandhi, who had been at the forefront in offering cooperation in the British war effort, and who had even offered to encourage recruitment of Indians into the British Indian forces. He called the Rowlatt Act the “Black Act” and argued that not everyone should get punishment in response to isolated political crimes.

Gandhi called for a mass protest at all India level. But soon, having seen the constitutional protest meet with ruthless repression, Gandhi organised a Satyagraha Sabha and roped in younger members of Home Rule Leagues and the Pan Islamists. The forms of protest finally chosen included observance of a nationwide hartal (strike) accompanied by fasting and prayer, and civil disobedience against specific laws, and courting arrest and imprisonment.

There was a radical change in the situation by now.

(i) The masses had found a direction; now they could ‘act’ instead of just giving verbal expression to their grievances.

(ii) From now onwards, peasants, artisans and the urban poor were to play an increasingly important part in the struggle.

(iii) Orientation of the national movement turned to the masses permanently. Gandhi said that salvation would come when masses were awakened and became active in politics. Satyagraha was to be launched on April 6, 1919 but before it could be launched, there were large-scale violent, anti-British demonstrations in Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi, Ahmedabad, etc. Especially in Punjab, the situation became

so very explosive due to wartime repression, forcible recruitments and ravages of disease, that the Army had to be called in. April 1919 saw the biggest and the most violent anti-British upsurge since 1857. The Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, Sir Michael O’Dwyer, is said to have used aircraft strafing against the violent protestors.

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (April 13, 1919) Amritsar was the worst affected by violence. In the beginning there was no violence by the protestors. Indians shut down their shops and normal trade and the empty streets showed the Indians’ displeasure at the British betrayal. On April 9, two nationalist leaders, Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal, were arrested by the British officials without any provocation except that they had addressed protest meetings, and taken to some unknown destination. This caused resentment among the Indian protestors who came out in thousands on April

10 to show their solidarity with their leaders. Soon the protests turned violent because the police resorted to firing in which some of the protestors were killed. Tension ran high. In the riot that followed, five Englishmen are reported to have been killed and Marcella Sherwood, an English woman missionary going on a bicycle, was beaten up.

Troops were sent immediately to quell the disturbances. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer was the senior British officer with the responsibility to impose martial law and restore order. By then the city had returned to calm and the protests that were being held were peaceful. Dyer, however, issued a proclamation on April 13 (which was also Baisakhi) forbidding people from leaving the city without a pass and from organising demonstrations or processions, or assembling in groups of more than three.

On Baisakhi day, a large crowd of people mostly from neighbouring villages, unaware of the prohibitory orders in the city, gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh, a popular place for public events, to celebrate the Baisakhi festival. Local leaders had also called for a protest meeting at the venue. It is not clear how many in the 20,000 odd people collected there were political protestors, but the majority were those who had collected for the festival. Meanwhile, the meeting had gone on peacefully, and two resolutions, one calling for

the repeal of the Rowlatt Act and the other condemning the firing on April 10, had been passed. It was then that Brigadier- General Dyer arrived on the scene with his men.

The troops surrounded the gathering under orders from General Dyer and blocked the only exit point and opened fire on the unarmed crowd. No warning was issued, no instruction to disperse was given. An unarmed gathering of men, women and children was fired upon as they tried to flee.

According to official British Indian sources, 379 were identified dead, and approximately 1,100 were wounded. The Indian National Congress, on the other hand, estimated more than 1,500 were injured, and approximately 1,000 were killed. But it is precisely known that 1650 bullets were fired into the crowd. The incident was followed by uncivilised brutalities on the inhabitants of Amritsar. Martial law was proclaimed in the Punjab, and public floggings and other humiliations were perpetrated. To take just one instance, Indians were forced to crawl on their bellies down the road on which the English missionary had been assaulted.

The entire nation was stunned. Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest. Gandhi gave up the title of Kaiser-i-Hind, bestowed by the British for his work during the Boer War. Gandhi was overwhelmed by the atmosphere of total violence and withdrew the movement on April 18, 1919.

Seen in an objective way, Dyer ensured the beginning of the end of the British Raj.

What had happened in Amritsar made Gandhi declare that cooperation with a ‘satanic regime’ was now impossible. He realised that the cause of Indian independence from British rule was morally righteous. The way to the non- cooperation movement was ready.

According to the historian, A.P.J Taylor, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre was the “decisive moment when Indians were alienated from British rule”.

The events of 1919 were to shape Punjab’s politics of resistance. Bhagat Singh was just 11 at the time of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. For Bhagat Singh’s Bharat Naujawan Sabha, the massacre was to act as a symbol that would help overcome the apathy that came in the wake of the end of the non-cooperation movement.

Views

The enormity of the measures taken by the Government in the Punjab for quelling some local disturbances has, with a rude shock, revealed to our minds the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India ... [T]he very least that I can do for my country is to take all consequences upon myself in giving voice to the protest of the millions of my countrymen, surprised into a dumb anguish of terror. The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation...

—Rabindranath Tagore in a letter to the Viceroy

No government deserves respect which holds cheap the liberty of its subjects.

—M.K. Gandhi in Young India, after the

Jallianwala Bagh massacre

Udham Singh, who bore the name, Ram Mohammad Singh Azad, later assassinated Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Governor who presided over the brutal British suppression of the 1919 protests in Punjab. Udham Singh was hanged in 1940 for his deed. (His ashes were returned to India in 1974.)